


Why Tigers Eat Their Young

by heavenlyhost



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, Organized Crime, Pining, Pseudo-Incest, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenlyhost/pseuds/heavenlyhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all have loved ones, friends, family, Ficus trees that they don’t want to see get hurt, put at risk, but that’s the price they’re paying, trying to take down the mob. They’ve just bagged someone big, someone the higher ups are going to want back, and that means everyone is at risk.  They’ve just asked for Hell, and no one will admit it, but they’re all a little scared to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Sharp Teeth You Have

**Author's Note:**

> This AU fic was born out of my imagination and the idea that the Avengers could be put into any sort of universe and it would be awesome. So, here it is. This is a WIP, and I can't say how often I'll update, but I'll try to be relatively timely. There are chapters that deal with some very sensitive material, I will put up warnings in each chapter for those sensitive subjects. Please pay attention to them, because I don't want to upset someone. Also, this chapter is purposely small. Most other chapters won' be this tiny, I promise. I can't think of anything else to say, so... I hope you enjoy.

“You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law.”

The red and blue lights still flash and whirl, burning into his retinas and spotting his vision.

“You have the right to an attorney.”

The metal’s too tight around his wrists, and he can tell the skin’s going to blister and tear.

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”

He’s walked to the car, the door already open. When he passes by her, her red hair tossing and her expression grim, he opens his mouth and smiles wide.

“Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?”

Good ole Cap, doing it by the books. There’s no way they’d let him get off on account of a few unread rights, after all.

Still, he can’t believe it.

He can’t believe they did it.

And these fucking pricks? They have no idea what’s coming.

>>————>

“I don’t like it." 

“What? Baby Face giving up so easily?”

Steve cuts Tony the darkest look he can. Buying in to the media’s stupid names – it’s wrong and it’s against protocol, which is exactly why Tony does it. Well, that and he gets a kick out of every time Steve glares at him. This particular look is the seven hundred and twentieth.

Still, he agrees with Steve. Catching Clint Barton is like catching the Gingerbread Man, and the fact that they’ve managed to do it, that he didn’t really fight or even taunt them? It’s got him just as on edge as it does everyone else. Clint has connections, a certain kind that run thick like blood, and blood is a powerful thing when it comes to organized crime.

Barton’s fucked up, violent and likely to beat men to death, but in the end he’s just wild. Troublesome and a serious threat, but not the biggest. It’s the person who stands behind him that makes them worry. They’ve all seen the photos, saw what happened to Buck Chisholm, Jacques Duquesne, and countless others. One wrong look at Barton can earn someone a death sentence.

And they’ve just arrested him.

They all have loved ones, friends, family, Ficus trees that they don’t want to see get hurt, put at risk, but that’s the price they’re paying, trying to take down the mob. They’ve just bagged someone big, someone the higher ups are going to want back, and that means everyone is at risk.  They’ve just asked for Hell, and no one will admit it, but they’re all a little scared to go home.

They know Barton won’t talk, but that doesn’t stop Steve from walking in and sitting down across from him. It doesn’t stop Tony from standing off to the side.

Barton grins at them, all sugar and charm, raises one brow, leans back in his seat like he’s at home about to watch a game, and gestures a hand between them.

“You two fuckin’ yet?”

Steve’s expression hardens, and Tony makes an indignant noise.

“Him? Really? You think _we’re_ going-”

“Stark.”

“What? I’m just sayin’, maybe he’s going blind and that’s why-”

“Tony. Shut. Up.”

Barton grins, leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. He’s watching them with an expression that makes the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck stand up. He looks like a predator, like a killer, one who’s thoroughly enjoying playing with his meal before he devours it.

It scares the shit out of him, because this man is in _jail_ , and he looks like he couldn’t be happier.

He decides right then and there that he doesn’t like it, either.

“Why don’t you start talking, Barton? You know you’re not getting out of here.”

At least Steve’s focused.

Clint leans back in his seat again, props his feet on the table and whistles something high and ridiculous as he twirls his finger. Tony’s pretty sure it’s from Snow White.

“I’d rather watch the two’a you go at it.”

 “I knew you were kinky, but wouldn’t you rather wait until we have your boyfriend here, too?”

Clint’s eyes narrow, but he still grins, like life’s all one big joke. “How’s Pepper doin’, Tony? She still seein’ that one guy, what’s his name?” He waves his hands and looks toward the ceiling, mocking him, because they both know he already knows. “Happy, ain’t it? What a fuckin’ queer name.”

Tony sees the threat for what it is and as much as he likes to rattle off, he’s not risking Pepper, not anyone, just because he said something that made Barton cranky.

Steve flips open the binder with more force than necessary, and Clint wears his usual shit-eating grin. It’s starting to grate on even Tony’s nerves.

“What’cha got for me, Cap?”

“It’s your file, Clint.”

Nothing about Barton’s expression changes, but Tony feels his own stomach twist, because if there’s anyone in the mob Tony’s ever felt sorry for, it’s stupid fucking Baby Face Barton.

Tony’s used to feeling a little bit sorry for a lot of criminals, but he remembers years back, when Barton suddenly fell under public eye, and when things started getting unearthed, when they all started to learn, either through the news or through Natasha, and sometimes even Thor, who Clint Barton really was and where he came from.


	2. The Good Fortune Of Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are mentions/explicit details of domestic abuse, child abuse, the incestuous rape of minors, and the rape of a minor by an adult. Please be advised of these warnings. This chapter is a lot longer, and was mostly typed up when I posted the first. The third chapter won't come quite so quickly, so I apologize in advance for making you wait.

When Edith Jackson meets Harold Barton, he’s the young son of a butcher. He likes loud music and kisses her so sweetly she thinks he might be made of sugar. He buys her flowers and takes her dancing. When she buys from the store, he gives her the best cuts of meat for as low a price as he can.

She holds his hand when his father dies, hugs him when he says the butcher shop is his now, says yes when he gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him.

He starts to drink more, then, but the only thing Edith worries about is his health. She takes the occasional slap, but doesn’t worry much for the safety of their child, because no one could ever hit a child.

They call him Barney even though they name him Charles, and Harold plays the part of proud father by finding a bar, getting drunk, and fighting anyone who dares take him on.

Barney is as normal as any other baby. Harold gets tense and drinks too much when Barney cries, he yells and throw things, but he doesn’t touch the baby. He takes his violence out on the objects around him, of which Edith is included. Nobody notices the bruises or the yelling, and if they do, they never say anything. What happens in the Barton household is the business of the Bartons.

When Clint is born, things get worse. Barney cries and screams more often, jealousy and bitterness fueling his bad behavior. Clint cries when he needs to, but mostly just babbles, chubby little fingers reaching out to grab and big blue eyes following every little movement.

When Clint’s teeth start coming in he won’t stop crying, hands constantly patting at his cheeks and lips as he wails. Barney smacks him and yells, just like his father, but instead of making him proud, it makes Harold angry and he backhands Barney and tells him to go to his room. Edith doesn’t say a word, just keeps washing the dishes, and Harold scoops Clint up into his arms, sits down with his bottle of whiskey and his second son and watches television, and whenever Clint fusses, he takes one whiskey soaked finger and rubs it along red gums until the baby’s quiet.

“Jus’ like yer ol’ man, ain’t ya?” he laughs. Clint coos and kicks his legs. Harold just nods and goes back to watching the game. Barney watches from the top of the stairs with a scowl on his face.

They get older and Harold gets meaner. He hits without prejudice, though he favors his boys. Barney learns to lie, and Clint gets hit with more frequency than before. Edith never steps in to stop her husband, only wipes away the blood and tells him he should behave, shushes him when he tries to say he didn’t do anything. Clint catches Barney grinning on more than one occasion and never understands.

Clint feels almost happy when the cops show up late one night to tell them their parents are dead. He’s seven and he thinks _good riddance_ and then feels sick and guilty and wrong.

>>————>

Natasha watches from the other side of the glass as they talk to him. Of all the others here, besides Phil, she’s the one who’s known Clint the longest. She knows some of his secrets, was the one who filled in the gaps about what Buck and Jacques did and why they died the way they did, because Clint told her one night, drunk and drugged and slumped on the couch.

She can see it in his posture, in how relaxed he is, that he’s playing with them. He’s a wolf pretending to be alone while the pack gets ready to strike, and her cover’s going to be blown. She’s spent so much of her life working with these people, moving up in the ranks and growing closer and closer to the heart and now that’s all been washed down the drain. Clint knows who the rat is, and that rat is her.

She played a hand in Barton’s arrest, and as soon as that information gets out, there’ll be a target on her back the size of Russia. It terrifies her more than she would ever willingly admit. She’s seen first hand what they can do, what they have done, and she can only imagine what they’ll do to her. The touch will be personal, and it doesn’t matter how much Clint likes her, there’s no amount of sweet-talking he could ever do to get her out of the mess she’s made for herself. Not that he would stick his neck out for her now. She’s stabbed him in the back and if there’s one thing Clint Barton doesn’t take well to, it’s being turned on. It doesn’t matter that she was never really on his side in the first place. They were friends and now he knows they’re enemies.

She doesn’t let her mind linger on what else she’s going to lose, the man she’s in love with and who she hopes loves her back. She can’t think about that now, so she focuses on the conversation, on Clint who stares at Steve with his casual grin that means they’re in for far more trouble than any of them ever bargained for. They did the one thing Natasha has always prided herself on not doing: they underestimated their opponent.

Next to her stands Phil Coulson, and if there’s anyone’s head she’d want to see inside of, it’s his. He’s known Clint longer than anyone else here, was the one who first brought Clint in for questioning when Federal Agent Charles Bernard Barton’s mutilated corpse was found hanging in front of a courthouse. He knew Clint back when the newspapers and TV hosts first started calling him Baby Face Barton, when he was just a petty criminal. He knew Clint back when he was little more than the victim of awful crimes, and as Natasha spares a glance in his direction, she can’t help but wonder if he blames himself.

>>————>

Clinton Barton is young and stupid. He has a record that goes back all the way back into his childhood, not that it matters now that he’s an adult, but Phil knows it just by looking at him. This kid is trouble and he can see in it in the shit-eating grin, hear it in the wiseass remarks – but he also knows this kid is nervous. His hands just barely shake and his laugh is a little too breathy.

He probably thinks he’s being charged with another crime, probably worried he’s going to jail.

“Mr. Barton-”

“Clint.”

“Mr. Barton, early yesterday morning a body was discovered hanging outside of Kings County, a courthouse in Brooklyn-”

“Yeah, I know it, but look, I didn’t have anything to do with-”

“That body was your brother, Charles Barton.”

The color drains out of his face and Phil watches as a suddenly sick looking Clint leans back, hands in his lap. He licks his lips and lets out a shaky breath. “It was – Barney’s dead?”

Phil nods and Clint stares at his hands. It only takes a few seconds before the kid looks at him again, eyes narrowed despite the shell-shocked expression he still wears. “You didn’t bring me all the way down here just to tell me he’s dead.”

Phil mentally crosses off the ‘stupid’ he had labeled Clint with.

“We have reason to believe you were involved.”

“ _What_?”

“Three nights before your brother was murdered, he received a text message from your phone, asking if he would be willing to meet. He agreed to meet you in a motel not far from the courthouse on the night he was murdered.”

Clint shakes his head furiously, too caught up in denying the accusations to maintain the devil may care attitude.

“No - No, I haven’t seen Barney in _years_.”

“The motel clerk has a record. Charles Barton checked into a room that night.”

Clint shakes his head again, and Phil can tell this case is going to be a long one.

>>————>

When Steve got back from Afghanistan, there was one story all over New York, and it was a story about a murder and two brothers. Steve read about it in the newspaper over a cup of coffee. One brother, an FBI agent, found mutilated and dead outside a courthouse, and the other, a known criminal, having arranged a meeting with the brother the night of his murder.

Steve had sighed, shaken his head and tried to ignore it. Despite his valiant efforts to avoid the news, Steve still learned everything about the Barton brothers.

Steve has always been one who firmly believes that a man makes his own choices, that his life is his own and he is the only one really at fault, but staring across the table at Clint Barton, he can’t help but think that maybe a man’s past really does take away some of those choices.

He thinks of Banner, who shared a similar life, and tries to convince himself that Barton could have fought his way out, but he’s got a notebook full of information that makes a damn good argument for Barton never living a life any different from the one he has now.

Steve has a good sense of right and wrong, but if there’s anyone who makes him question it all, it’s Clint Barton.

>>————>

Phil’s spent too much time around the kid, because he has to hide a smirk when Barton gives a glamorous bow to the jury. It’s hard not to like him, and the jury’s not supposed to know a thing about him, but they do and they smile.

Betty ushers him to the table, whispering what Phil guesses is some form of reprimand, if Clint’s sheepishly apologetic smile is anything to go by. The man’s on trial for murder and yet he’s got the whole courtroom wrapped around his pinky finger. There’s no wonder as to why the press has nicknamed him Baby Face Barton – he puts Dillinger’s own charm to shame.

Maria Hill doesn’t buy into it. Not in the slightest. Phil likes her because she’s good at her job, but that’s about as far it goes. She’s tough on crime, and as prosecutor, she has a right to be, but sometimes Phil thinks she borders too close to harsh.

The trial is tense, everyone on the edges of their seats, eyes flicking back and forth between Betty and Maria who argue and bicker and wield their words like only the best lawyers can. The entire process involves months, a case rushed because Charles Barton was a federal agent, and even then it’s taken months to get to this point.

Phil knows about Charles’ friend, the one that Betty calls to the stand, but Clint doesn’t, he can see it in the furrowed brow and the tense line of his shoulders, and Phil wants to chastise Betty, because this is – this is _important_.

“Mr. Dunne, what can you tell us about Charles Barton?” Betty asks the question in a way that proves she already has a point, and with the way Samuel Dunne shifts in his seat, he knows exactly what she wants to hear.

“Barney was – he was a good guy, good at his job. We’d all go drinking once a night, but – but Barney and me, we were pretty close. Some nights we’d take it back to his place, and he’d… We all knew he had a brother, but Barney never said much about ‘im. Not until this one night, he was – he was really drunk, and I… I never said anything, because I thought… Well , I didn’t know what I thought, to be honest.”

Phil looks over, and he feels sorry, because the kid is there in his seat, pale and shaking. Phil knows the look, the twist of too many emotions, too many memories, and as he listens he only feels sorrier, because he’s gotten to know Clint Barton over these last couple of months and he knows Clint didn’t kill his brother.

Clint doesn’t notice the looks. All he can think about is how everyone in the court is about to hear, and they’re not even going to get the real story, they’re not going to hear his side of the story, just some dumb fuck who heard it from Barney, who was _drunk_ when he told it, and Clint twists his hands together, imagines ringing this stupid bastard’s neck as he thinks about it, thinks about all the things he _purposely never thinks about_.

>>————>

Clint is eleven and Barney is fifteen when it starts. They’ve been in the orphanage for four years already, and no one has much interest in them. They’re too old and while Clint might have managed to get out before, he was too attached to his brother and no one wanted to touch Barney with a ten-foot pole, let alone adopt him. So, Clint was swept under the rug, ignored by all the couples, young and old, that searched for their shiny new toy.

He looks over at the kid next to him – Johnny – and without thinking he says, “Have you ever been fucked by a guy?”

Johnny looks startled as he shakes his head, but then he asks, “Have you?”

Clint nods and thinks about how much it hurt, how hot he’d been, and how hard he’d had to bite his lip to keep from crying or making any noise.

It keeps happening, even though he tells Barney it hurts and makes him feel sick.

Barney tells him to shut up, to keep his stupid mouth _shut_ , and pushes him on his stomach.

One night Barney stops moving, stops panting in his ear long enough to ask, “Dad used to – he said it was our secret. Just ours.” Clint bites down on the pillow his face is pressed into.

“Did he ever – He ever fuck you?” Clint chokes on a sob and shakes his head. He never sees the smug, satisfied smile on Barney’s face, but he feels the fingers that dig into his hips and the way Barney moves faster, harder, and he doesn’t really care what Barney’s face looks like.

One night Barney makes him pack and then they run away. They meet Jac, who offers them a place to stay, posing as nothing more than a Good Samaritan, and Clint is stupid enough to buy into the lies he and his brother sell.

Jac sells drugs and people and a lot of other things. Barney doesn’t stop, not that Clint expected him to, but things don’t stay the way they were, either.  Once Jac figures it all out, he wants in on the game and Clint can’t say no.

When he’s old enough, Jac makes Clint go with him on visits to clients who think they can skip out on paying. The first time Jac tells him to beat someone, Clint balks, but when he gets better at it, when he sees that fear in their eyes, the same fear he’s felt so many times, the same fear he still feels, he starts to like it. He starts to ask if he can go, if he can be the one to get money for Jac, and Jac indulges him all too happily.

And then Clint beats a man to death. He never meant to, but the man taunted and said a lot of shit he shouldn’t have and Clint saw red, and by the time he was okay again the man was dead and he was certain he never wanted to do this again.

He’s only eighteen.

He goes up to Jac and tells him that he doesn’t want to do this anymore, and Jac laughs at him. Clint says it again and again until the man finally understands. Clint only wishes he’d thought things through.

When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital. His legs are broken, his face bruised, one eye swollen shut, and there are telltales aches in his lower half that make his one open eye burn with tears. Barney’s there, in the corner of the room, and Clint tries to explain, but Barney cuts him off long before he can even try.

When Barney leaves, Clint doesn’t bother trying to hold back the tears.

>>————>

All the court ever hears is that FBI agent Charles Barton used to rape his younger brother.

The media nearly shits itself. This is the good stuff, the juicy, scandalous sort of story that _sells_.

They don’t care about Clint Barton, but the jury finds him not guilty, anyway.


End file.
